Bass Park To Share Fame With Another Black Pioneer

FORT LAUDERDALE -- Dr. James Bass, the city`s first black dentist, will have to share some of his immortality in tiny Bass Park with the city`s first black commissioner.

City commissions voted on Tuesday to name the park`s recreation building after former Commissioner Andrew DeGraffenreidt III, despite protests by neighbors of the park who advocated that he be honored somewhere else.

``We walked the neighborhood and found that people really wanted Bass Park to remain,`` said Betty Robinson, president of the Northwest United Homeowners Association. She said 185 names were collected on petitions.

Bass Park, bounded by Northwest 18th Court, 26th Terrace and 28th Avenue, is named after Bass, a dentist and philanthropist who helped many black students go to college.

Robinson explained that the neighbors had no objection to having something named after DeGraffenreidt, but why ``clutter up`` the tiny park with the names of two black pioneers?

But City Commissioner Carlton Moore, who initiated the move to name the recreation building in the park, prevailed.

He said the DeGraffenreidt family wanted something in the neighborhood named after him and that a relative of the Bass family also approved the idea.

Commissioners Cary Keno and Jack Latona supported Moore`sproposal.

Robinson said the action shows that the City Commission is not responsive to ``the little people.``

``When the white community tries to figure out why the black folks don`t vote, they`ll know it`s because they don`t think it will make any difference,`` she said.

``The little people lost today.``

Commissioners also voted to move a post office from Southwest Second Street to Sistrunk Boulevard, although the exact location and date of the move is undetermined.